Eli's Christmas Roll

This has been an exciting and confusing week. It started innocently enough - Shelby and I went to the gym on Monday morning for a swim. I flew to New York for a business meeting and expected to return on Tuesday night. Unfortunately, a snowstorm paralyzed the midwest on Tuesday. For a while, my flight looked like one of the only ones that would make it to Chicago. I boarded the plane and thought I had beaten the odds. After about ten minutes, we were pulled off the plane and told the flight was cancelled. Due to the number of other cancelled flights and busy travel period, seats on other flights were scarce. Eventually I managed to catch a flight to Dallas, leaving at about 9PM. I arrived in Dallas at 1 in the morning and slept for a few hours in the Hyatt attached to the airport. Before I left the airport for the hotel, I arranged a seat on the direct flight from Dallas to Madison on Wednesday morning. I woke up and took the shuttle to the airport. On my way to the terminal, Shelby called and told me that the flight to Madison had just been cancelled. I then arranged to fly to Chicago, expecting to arrive around 12. The only flight with seats on it from Chicago to Madison was scheduled to leave at 11. I asked American Airlines to give me a seat on that flight, in spite of the scheduling. I arrived in Chicago around 12 and discovered, after running through the airport, that the Madison flight had not left yet. I was able to jump on that flight and make it home by mid-afternoon, tired but intact. I spent the rest of Christmas Eve with Shelby and Eli, watching several episodes of Newsradio and basically trying to rest. 

Yesterday we got up early and loaded the car for a drive to St. Louis. It took us nearly two hours to get everything packed and loaded. We drove to St. Louis to visit Grandma Gail and Grandpa Allan. The drive was challenging. No restaurants were open, so places to change Eli were few and far between. We stopped at a gas station near Oglesby and a rest stop near Springfield. Neither was ideal for changing Eli. All told, it took us about seven hours to arrive in St. Louis. 

After arriving, Eli responded to his seven hour confinement by having an unusual amount of energy. So much so, in fact, that he rolled over from his stomach to his back for the first time! He did it several times!! 

After his playtime, we all retired to bed by about 9. We are trying hard to get Eli into a pattern of sleeping from 9-7. Since our trips a few weeks ago, Eli's sleeping has become more irregular. He now wakes at least twice a night, and I don't think any of us are particularly happy about that. Perhaps by lengthening the 'night' window he will become more regular. If nothing else, it should allow us to get more rest! One side effect to new parent-dom is that it is almost impossible to shake a cold. I've had a sore throat since Thanksgiving that I just can't shake - though I'm pretty sure it is exacerbated by lack of sleep. After getting a solid rest last night, even just for one night, it began to feel better.